Water Source Protection Plan moves forward

Developing Water Source Protection Plan requires cooperation of all users in a watershed

By Dianne Stallings

dstallings@ruidosonews.com @RuidosoNews on Twitter

Posted:
02/14/2014 12:46:18 PM MST

Dennis McQuillan, source water protection manager with the Drinking Water Bureau of the New Mexico Environment Department, prepares his power-point presentation. (Dianne Stallings — Ruidoso News)

State environment officials will help Ruidoso staff put together a Source Water Protection Plan to monitor and protect sources of the village's drinking water supply.

They were in Ruidoso Wednesday to seek public input on the water-related challenges the village faces and possible solutions.

Dennis McQuillan, a hydro-geologist and source water protection manager for the Drinking Water Bureau of the New Mexico Environment Department, said he travels around the state working with water systems and communities to empowered them, provide technical expertise and administrative support to protect their sources of drinking water. Source water protection is a voluntary program created by Congress in the Safe Drinking Water Act amendments of 1996, that encourages public water systems, defined as systems that serve 15 or more customers, to partner with their states in the protection effort, he said.

John Pijawka, with the Ruidoso field office of the New Mexico Environment Department, demonstrates with a groundwater model how contamination of water sources can occur. (Dianne Stallings — Ruidoso News)

Ruidoso's drinking water is supplied through both groundwater and surface water, "and there are lots of challenges to that," he said. The protection that the act supplies is governed by rules adopted by federal Environmental Protection Agency. "We have standards on how these systems are constructed. You have to have a certified operator run the system, treatment may be required, the state does inspections and there is extensive water testing required to make sure the water meets maximum contamination levels," McQuillan said.

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Water sources could be wells, lakes, streams, a spring, anything used for water supply, he said. The EPA encourages the protection plans be based on a watershed or water basin to engage multiple entities, including tribes and domestic well owners, because they all are drinking out of the same source of water, he said. However, people who use private domestic wells are not protected by the program, McQuillan said. When a public system such as Ruidoso uses groundwater, public and private wells tap into the same aquifer or aquifers, essentially the underground water flow channels, he said. Participants want to protect their specific aquifer, as well as the one mile radius around a well, defined as the well head, he said.

"You also want to protect the entire watershed as well as the point of diversion (from which) you take water," he said. "Basically, you want to prevent from any contamination, loss of quality or quantity. With the drought we have, we have some really big challenges now. All this costs money, if you have to treat water or develop new sources."

Lincoln County Commissioner Dallas Draper said he would like to see the county join in the source protection effort.

Why source water protection?

McQuillan said in 1854, during an outbreak of cholera in London, a physician defied the common perception that the disease was air borne, and traced the source to one specific well. He convinced local authorities to remove the pump handle and the outbreak stopped. The villain was a cesspool close to the well. His methods basically are the same that are used in epidemiology today, McQuillan said.

A study in the north valley of Albuquerque showed that compared to customers on city water, on-site well and septic users had a higher incidence of cyptosporidium, a water-borne disease associated with sewage.

"We don't have hundreds of people dropping dead form cholera, but we still have some challenges in terms of the safety of water," McQuillan said. "Annually, we still issue 10 to 15 boil water advisories statewide in response to bacteria detections or other unsanitary conditions."

Indoor plumbing saves lives, he said, showing a chart illustrating that death rates dropped as the percentages of homes with indoor plumbing increased. "Typhoid fever almost is eradicated in the United States, but typhoid fever and cholera is extremely wide spread worldwide," he said. "Forty-three percent of the world population lacks inside plumbing, while it is less than 1 percent in the United States."

When drinking-water professionals show up for work everyday, they are preventing water-borne diseases, he said.

Other hazards to water systems include drought, wildfires, debris flooding, vandalism and long-term depletion when pumping exceeds the ability to replenish the underground supply, McQuillan said.

"The drought monitor from last June was really bad and we're looking at another serious drought," he said. "The outlook for the end of April is not good." The drought may persist or intensify and, "Lincoln County is right there," he said.

While wet and dry cycles are natural, draw down from aquifers called groundwater depletion occurs from sustained pumping, he said.

"It's been documented as early as 1947 in New Mexico," he said, adding that some areas could be dry in two or three decades.

"A lot of wells go up and down with cycles, but some just show a steady decline without increases from rain," McQuillan said, "Wells and springs are drying up all over the state. Just last year, we trucked water into a lot of communities. That creates public health and fire suppression issues and quality of life."

Protecting water supply

"Not here, but some rural water supplies in region, community and noncommunity systems, rely on one source and that's a huge risk factor," McQuillan said. "We hope they will look at what's going on with the village (interconnecting different sources) and think about developing a second source. Half the systems in New Mexico have one source only."

Under the template put together by the department, monitoring source water is critical, he said, adding that Ruidoso already is doing some of the work suggested. Well levels should be measured, along with the number of gallons of water a well produces per minute to determine when and if the numbers decrease. The conductivity of the water should be measured to see if the salt content or other mineral content rises as water levels drop. Tests are needed to detect if water from different sources comes into a well as the major aquifer is depleted. Water from deeper sources may have more arsenic and fluoride. Tests should be conducted while wells are being pumped and when they are static, and the rate of recovery after being pumped should be recorded on a main well and those nearby to determine the aquifer's ability to deliver to the wells, he said. The U.S. Geological Survey already is monitoring 48 wells in the county. Most showed a big dip in 2013, because of the lack of snow, McQuillan said. "It seems the aquifers here took a big hit," he said.

Ordinances can be approved to protect water sources, he said. Outreach and education on conservation are important.

"Basically, it's a planning process," McQuillan said. "It won't make it rain or snow, but it will help you manage it better. Monitor your sources, so you can see emergencies coming and you are not so vulnerable and maybe, you will not have an outage."

Although the program is voluntary, it may become a required element for future government funding of projects, he said.